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LOIS A. GRIMM / FOR THE CITIZENS’ VOICE Charlene and Ken Cook have owned Cook’s Store in Lehman Township for 41 years. The couple are selling the store, the first in Lehman Township and one of the oldest operating businesses in the region.

LEHMAN TWP. — At Ken and Charlene Cook’s old-fashioned general store, they sell everything from soup to nuts — and bolts.

Also camping lanterns, outdoor clothing, lottery tickets, an assortment of baking needs, homemade hoagies, and outside, shelves of watermelons and other fresh produce. You name it, they probably have it.

“Usually people will say, ‘if they don’t have it, we don’t need it,’” Charlene Cook said.

Cook’s Store in Lehman Center, at the intersection of Mountain View Drive, Market Street and state Route 118, was Lehman Township’s first store and the last of the old-time commercial enterprises still standing. In fact, since it has been a general store since the 1840s, it’s one of the oldest — if not the oldest — continuously operating businesses in the region.

But the store is poised to change hands for the 10th time in its existence. The Cooks, who will have owned it for 41 years come November, put it up for sale about two weeks ago.

“We’ll miss it, but it’s just time to spend time with the family,” Charlene Cook said.

The Cooks have two daughters, Tracey Thompson and Jennifer Paczewski, and four grandchildren, two boys and two girls. Ken Cook admits they spoil the grandchildren — “but it’s fun.”

“We missed time with the girls growing up. Now we have our grandchildren,” Charlene Cook said.

‘Downtown’ Lehman

Lehman Township was created in 1829 from part of Dallas Township and part of what is now Lake Township, and was named after a state lawmaker of the time, Dr. William Lehman of Philadelphia.

Its first settlers were Nehemiah Ide and Jeremiah Brown.

Lehman Center, located on Market Street in the area of what is now state Route 118 — which was constructed in the 1950s — was the township’s commercial district.

Henry C. Bradsby wrote in his 1893 “History of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania” that Lehman Center had two general stores, one hardware store, one hotel and two blacksmiths.

“The first store was opened about 1848, by Daniel Urquhart and Edward Shott, near where the Lehman Center school-house now stands,” Bradsby wrote in a passage taken from the 1880 “History of Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming Counties.”

The latter book goes on to state: “They sold to Bogardus & Fisher, who sold to Flick & Flannigan. Mr. Flick sold his interest to Flannigan, who kept the store in his own name for a long time and then sold to R.A. Whiteman, who now carries on the business on the corner at Lehman Center — now the only store in Lehman.”

But not for long. In the 1880s, Thomas N. Major started a store across the street, according to a brief history of Lehman Center written by township historian Judy Dawe. The Major family lived on the second floor and sold farm equipment and machinery on the first floor. They also had a huge scale to weigh farmers’ crops and wagons to take the produce to the city, she said.

Dawe said traffic from Huntsville, Wilkes-Barre, Kingston and the rest of the West Side came from Hillside Road to get to Harveys Lake, passing through Lehman Township via the Outlet Road.

This, she states, was good for business, particularly Lehman Township’s tavern. To the right of what is now Cook’s Store was the Lehman House, also called the Gleason House or Gleason’s Hotel, owned by Fred Gleason. It was destroyed by fire in the 1920s and rebuilt. It was a frequent stopping point for people traveling to Harveys Lake, and Dawe notes that it was known for its chicken dinners on Sundays.

Except for Cook’s, none are around today as commercial enterprises, although some of the old buildings were converted to private residences. Others were torn down to make way for state Route 118.

Hope it will stay a store

As for Cook’s, William R. Neely of Idetown took the store over from Whiteman in the 1890s. Neely retired in 1935, but his family operated the store until his death in February 1952 at age 88. His son-in-law William Elston inherited the store, but he died young and the store was sold to George and Ethel Stolarick, the Cooks said.

The Stolaricks later sold the store to Rodney and Carole Schmig, from whom the Cooks bought it in 1973.

A century and a half ago, the store was one of the largest buildings in Lehman Township, with a large hall containing a raised platform upstairs; community events like plays and dances were held there, Dawe said.

Since its construction, the store has undergone a few changes and renovations, but still maintains a lot of character. Some of the shelves are the original wooden built-ins; others have been replaced at some point in the mid-20th century. There’s a hole in the ceiling for the pipe from a long-gone potbelly stove. Electric refrigerators long ago eliminated the need to keep perishables on ice.

Charlene Cook said she and Ken found one other store like theirs, in West Virginia, with the same kind of ladder on a track for getting groceries from floor-to-ceiling shelves. (The Cooks use the track as a display for lottery tickets.)

And then there’s the fun of dressing up the whole store for Halloween, Charlene Cook’s favorite holiday. She says wistfully that she’s not sure what she’ll do with all the decorations — maybe leave them for the next owner.

The business isn’t always easy. The advent of convenience stores “kind of slowed us down a little bit, but we still have our dedicated customers,” Charlene Cook said.

It’s one of the reasons the Cooks hope the building remains a store.

“People are just so nice. They’re so kind,” Charlene Cook said. “That’s what we’ll miss.”

Ken Cook agreed — 99.9 percent of the customers are very nice, he said.

“It’s unbelievable how a small community sticks together,” he said.

eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072

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